


you liked me

by Asgardsrevengers



Category: Outer Banks - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Angst With A Happy End, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, boat scene from ep6, parcel 9, talking about feelings in a healthy way yay!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25292149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asgardsrevengers/pseuds/Asgardsrevengers
Summary: missing scene from Parcel 9 where Sarah and Kie talk about the real reason they stopped being friends and resolve some of their issues.
Relationships: Kiara Carrera/Sarah Cameron
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44





	you liked me

“I mean, really, what did I do?” Kie asks, practically pleading with Sarah to be honest. 

“You liked me.”

It’s the sentence that makes Kie’s stomach lurch with that same kind of sick feeling she got way back when she was still repressing her feelings. Not just feelings for Sarah, but for all the girls she interacted with after Sarah. All the girls that would be weirded out or downright disgusted if she expressed herself the way she wanted to. 

“What?” Kie finally responds, blinking twice. 

“When...people get close to me, I feel trapped. And...I bail. And then I blame them for it.” Sarah looks up with a solemn expression. Kie can see the red in her eyes from smoking and the tears glistening, just barely holding on from spilling over. “I’m really sorry...and I miss you.”

Kie looks down, her eyes darting around in the dim light. “Whatever you thought I felt for you...whatever I might have done to weird you out...I can promise you, you’re wrong, okay?”

Sarah pulls back, brows furrowing. 

“What do you mean?”

Kie laughs humorlessly, shaking her head in resentment. “You thought I liked you, and that weirded you out too much, didn’t it? You couldn’t be friends with me because you knew. You  _ knew, _ Sarah, that I like girls, and—”

“It’s because I liked you back,” Sarah says suddenly. Kie turns her face towards Sarah slowly, a careful expression written on her face. 

“What?” she asks in a quiet, disbelieving whisper. Sarah’s bottom lip trembles as she looks down, wringing her hands anxiously. 

“I liked you back, and I didn’t know what to do with those feelings because it wasn’t like anything I ever felt with any of the guys I’ve been with...so I pushed you away so that I wouldn’t have to confront those feelings. I guess maybe I should have.”

Kie shakes her head with a bitter laugh. “For over a year I’ve been so damaged that I can’t even have a proper friendship with another girl because I’m so afraid of her getting the wrong idea and hating me for it, and you just expect all to be forgiven all of a sudden?”

Sarah looks back up, her eyes sparkling with unspilt tears. 

“I’m sorry, Kie. I never meant to hurt you or make you doubt yourself.”

“Well, you did,” Kie responds harshly, almost regretting it when Sarah’s lip begins to tremble again. 

“I’m sorry,” Sarah says for about the hundredth time. Kie sighs, pressing her back against the side of the boat. 

“Why did you let me go on hating myself if you knew how you felt about me?”

The words hang heavy in the air and Sarah shifts her body so she’s totally facing Kie. She winces when the sharp, searing pain of the jellyfish sting returns momentarily. 

“Because I...I wasn’t ready,” Sarah admits, somewhat bashfully. “Or maybe I was and it was just the people I cared about who weren’t. My dad would always make these stupid, off handed jokes about me and you whenever you weren’t around, and I guess I just internalized everything until I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Kie’s furrowed brow deepens. “Jokes? What kind of jokes.”

Sarah shrugs and glances down, suddenly interested in the loose string on the hem of her bikini bottom. She picks at it to distract herself from Kie’s intense gaze. “Just teasing me, saying you were my girlfriend and then laughing it off. It was like he was laughing at the idea of me even liking a girl...like it was just a joke, something that was entirely not possible. And I just...I felt like he would never see me the same if I confided in him how I really felt...about you.”

Kie keeps her head down as she processes Sarah’s explanation; if you could call it that. 

“That doesn’t excuse what you did to me, Sarah. How you made me feel so alone for an entire year. Before I met you, I thought there was something wrong with me. I tried having feelings for all these boys I met, but nothing felt right until I—till I met you, and then everything started to finally make sense. Why I couldn’t force myself to have feelings even when I met the nicest, sweetest guy. Why I got jealous of every guy who ever made you laugh, and why I wanted to hurt them when they made you cry.”

Sarah wipes the back of her hand across her face and sniffles tearfully. 

“I’m sorry.”

Kie should’ve kept count on how many times Sarah could say that same sentence during this conversation. 

“I’m sorry you ever felt like you were wrong or alone, and I’m sorry for being the reason for that.” Sarah scoots closer to Kie, carefully resting a hand on Kie’s knee. Kie stiffens but makes no effort to pull away. “But I’m telling you now that there is nothing wrong with you, nothing unnatural about the way you feel. I should’ve realized it a long time ago before I ever pushed you away and let others tell me how to feel.”

Kie looks up with an unsteady gaze. She locks eyes with Sarah, the intensity of their conversation striking her in her chest, suffocating her until she opens her mouth. 

“I miss you, too,” she says after moments of silence. Sarah’s shoulders visibly loosen, and her face relaxes from its serious expression. “And I get what you were saying...about the jokes and the comments and the fucking  _ feeling  _ of knowing that they will never fully understand you. Like, I know my parents love me, but will they accept me for everything that I am, no matter what?”

Sarah lowers her head with a solemn nod. “Yeah.”

Kie stretches her arm down, over her leg, till her hand is covering Sarah’s. Not holding, not gripping, just touching. Still, it brings a hopeful smile to Sarah’s lips. 

“I should’ve been there for you instead of running away like I always do when I get scared.” Sarah glances up, her forehead scrunched tightly with remorse. “I wasn’t a very good friend, was I?”

Kie lets half a smile pull at the corners of her lips. “No, you were a pretty good friend. I wouldn’t have survived my first Kook year without you.”

Sarah matches her hesitant smile. “Maybe you don’t have to survive the next one alone, either.”

Kie looks up, catches the serious look in Sarah’s eyes, and she'd be lying if she said the thought didn’t excite her a little. Not having to trudge through another year alone at the Kook academy was appealing, but trusting Sarah Cameron again was dangerous territory. 

“How can I trust you?”

Sarah draws back slightly, as if she’s offended by the question, though it is entirely warranted, in her opinion. Kie’s just trying to protect herself, and rightfully so. 

“Look, I can’t promise I’ll be the perfect friend or that I won’t mess up, but I promise I’ll never make you feel alone or outcast again. I would never say anything bad about you because you’re perfect, Kiara, and I messed up when I let you go.”

“Yeah, you did,” Kie says, her voice serious with a teasing undertone. She shifts, drawing her left leg up to sit on while stretching her right one out in front of her. “I never knew that you felt that way. I just thought you caught wind of my feelings and got weirded out and decided you didn’t want to be friends with me because of it. I wasn’t going to try and steal you from your boyfriend or make a move on you. It was a crush, it would’ve gone away organically.”

Sarah nods her head. “I know. You don’t have to explain yourself to me, this whole thing is my fault, anyways. If I hadn’t repressed myself to the point I couldn’t see clearly who I really had feelings for, none of this would’ve happened.”

Kie sighs and draws both her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knees and hugging them to her chest. “That’s not your fault, Sarah. Internalized homophobia is a motherfucker, huh?”

Sarah laughs faintly, nodding her head. “Yeah.”

Kie swallows as they fall into silence once again. She picks at the anklet around her leg, kneading one of the charms between her thumb and forefinger. “Do you still...have those feelings? For me?” She doesn’t look up, cant meet Sarah’s eyes for fear of giving her hope away. The silence stretches on for what feels like minutes. In reality, it’s just a few seconds, but to Kie it feels like forever waiting for Sarah’s reply. 

Finally, when she does answer, Kie doesn’t know whether to laugh with relief or cry. 

“They never left. Even after I pushed you away and pushed them down...they were always there, Kie.”

She swallows once; twice, eyes widening and chest rising. Her shoulders draw back and she looks at Sarah, dropping the calm facade she once wore. Now, her expression is open, vulnerable, mixed with both pain and joy. And the tears finally fall, rolling down her cheeks like raindrops. Despite everything in her telling her to make her move,  _ kiss the girl,  _ she stays planted in her spot. There’s no chance in Kie’s mind that she makes the first move. This is on Sarah. 

“Are you gonna say anything?” Sarah asks softly, the fear of rejection obvious in her tone. 

Kie manages to meet her gaze again, and she shakes her head lightly. “I...I’m not sure what to say.”

Sarah nods her head and smiles, though it’s evidently painful for her to accept Kie’s loss for words. “It’s okay. I know I don’t deserve anything after what I put you through. Not your friendship, certainly not—” She stops, looks up at Kie before she can finish the sentence. “Point is, I understand. I hurt you, and I’ll spend forever regretting it, but I understand.”

Kie’s face drops in disappointment. She isn’t sure why she even let herself hope that Sarah could pull her head out of her own ass for long enough to read all the signals. 

“I never said I wasn’t going to forgive you.”

Sarah looks up, brows raising in surprise. “What?”

“I forgive you,” Kie tells her, and Sarah’s mouth falls open slightly. 

“You do?”

Kie shrugs. “Yeah. But you need to work on yourself; realize the mistakes you made, the ones you’re  _ still  _ making. I’m not saying you have to be perfect, that would be ridiculous, but the things you do, Sarah, they affect other people, too, and they hurt other people. Just...remember that not everyone’s a cold hearted bitch like me.”

Sarah smiles. “You’re not cold hearted or a bitch. You’re seriously the kindest person I’ve ever met, Kie.”

“Ok, you don’t have to butter me up, I already forgave you.”

“I’m serious,” Sarah insists. She leans over, playfully pushing Kie’s knee. “I wish everyone saw the world like you did. I wish everyone saw me like you do.”

“What? You mean a whiny kook?” Kie asks, mostly teasing. Sarah’s mouth falls open in mock offense, then she starts giggling, and suddenly she’s on top of Kie, and they’re both laughing breathlessly. Sarah pulls up a little, propping one hand on either side of Kie’s head, trapping her there. Though, Kie makes no move to push her away or get out of the situation, so Sarah dips her head down, capturing Kie’s lips in a chaste kiss. Instinctively, as if she’s done this a hundred times before, (she hadn’t) Kie holds Sarah’s face in her palms, drawing Sarah closer and closer until they’re flush against each other. And everything Kie thought she should’ve felt when she kissed that Kook boy last year, she felt it now, growing taut inside her gut, pulling and twisting and making her warm all over. Sarah makes a noise like a quiet gasp, and then she’s pulling away, taking that feeling with her. Her face is still just inches from Kie’s, and they look at each other with wide eyes and mouths gasping for air. 

Kie thinks about moving her hands from Sarah’s face, but finds she doesn’t know what else to do with them. Above her, Sarah is smiling softly, and she’s so beautiful, and Kiara  _ fucking misses her.  _ So she pushes up on her elbows and kisses Sarah Cameron for the second time, and what she hopes is not the last time. Though she highly suspects it won’t be. 

When Sarah pulls away, she doesn’t stray far, pressing her forehead to Kie’s, breathing heavily. “W-we should talk.”

Kie shakes her head. “Talking is for the morning.”

Sarah’s lips pull into a giddy smile as she nods her head. “Okay.” And she kisses Kiara again, the smile a seemingly permanent fixture on her face. 

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
